Archive for 2016
July 3, 2016
TAXPROF ROUNDUP: The IRS Scandal, Day 1151.
I’M GUESSING IT’S BECAUSE, AS IN SAN JOSE, THE AUTHORITIES WANTED THE LEFT TO BEAT UP ITS OPPONENTS UNMOLESTED: Why weren’t neo-Nazis, anti-fascists kept apart at Capitol?
Journalists across the Sacramento region describe last Sunday’s riot at Capitol Park as among the most violent events they’ve covered.
The final tally was 10 people injured, five stabbed. The out-of-control protesters were photographed and caught on video attacking KCRA’s Mike Luery and videographer John Breedlove, as well as random passers-by. They used sticks the heft of baseball bats, knives and chunks of concrete. The Bee’s Paul Kitagaki Jr. barely avoided two concrete chunks and was caught in pepper spray, as was Frances Wang of Channel 10 (KXTV).
It was a melee between neo-Nazis – who had been given a permit for a rally on Capitol grounds – and a loosely organized group of self-identified anti-fascists, or “Antifa,” who came armed to shut down the rally. We have yet to hear satisfying answers to questions we’ve asked in the aftermath, particularly from the CHP: Why did officers appear to hang back as the initially quiet crowd erupted into violence? And why were no arrests made before protesters were allowed to leave? . . .
Kitagaki and Stanton are experienced journalists who have covered chaotic events. Kitagaki covered the 1999 Seattle riots protesting the WTO, which resulted in much destruction, and rioting in the 1980s in Berkeley. Stanton covered the violent copper mining strike riots in Arizona in the 1980s and numerous events involving white supremacist groups and militias. Through all of it, Stanton said, “I can’t recall ever walking into a situation where police were standing back while participants were swinging and charging at each other without cops reacting.”
“Nobody’s seen a police response like this,” he said. “It was just strange.”
People are assumed to intend the natural and probable results of their actions. I assume that this is what they wanted to happen.
WILL BREXIT SURVIVE THE BUREAUCRACY? Plus, Roger Kimball hands out the award for “the stupidest column (so far) goes to an American, Joe Klein,” who goes full Godwin on Brexit.
Too bad Klein didn’t consult those who survived “Remain 1.0.”
MICROBIOME NEWS: Gut bacteria spotted eating brain chemicals for the first time. “Bacteria have been discovered in our guts that depend on one of our brain chemicals for survival. These bacteria consume GABA, a molecule crucial for calming the brain, and the fact that they gobble it up could help explain why the gut microbiome seems to affect mood.”
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ED ROGERS IN THE WASHINGTON POST: The Lynch/Clinton tarmac tête-à-tête sends the message that rules are only for the little people.
Well, that’s because, in a fundamentally transformed America, they are.
The meeting Attorney General Loretta Lynch had with former president Bill Clinton on board her airplane in Phoenix is stunning. I wonder if at any other point during her time in office she has met privately with the spouse of another person who is the subject of a DOJ criminal investigation. There’s no way.
The denials from the attorney general and the former president that they did not discuss the criminal investigation underway against Hillary Clinton are beside the point. Just having the meeting sent a clear signal that the attorney general is cozy with the Clintons. In case career-minded FBI agents weren’t already intimidated by President Obama inserting himself into the investigation by declaring that Clinton’s private email server didn’t “jeopardize America’s national security,” the message was sent by this meeting: Any ambitious FBI agent hoping for a promotion in a potential Clinton administration can only hurt themselves by going against the wishes of the Clintons’ pal, Lynch. The tarmac tête-à-tête was probably effective. Lynch and the Clintons both knew exactly how the meeting would be received.
Gangster government, as Michael Barone calls it.
SCIENCE, CORRUPTED: Food firms linked to watchdog’s trashing of ‘eat less carbs’ report.
OPERATION CATAPULT, JULY 3, 1940: The Royal Navy attacks the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir.
In 1940, the French fleet was the fourth largest naval force in the world after Britain, the United States and Japan. Its strength included seven battleships, 19 cruisers, 71 destroyers and 76 submarines. Shortly after the Germans attacked France on May 10, 1940, most of the vessels in French ports sailed to other harbors. A powerful French naval force was anchored at Mers-el-Kebir, just to the west of the French Algerian port of Oran.
Churchill knew that the French warships could not be allowed to fall into the hands of the Axis. If Germany and Italy could add these units to their existing naval force, Britain would face an overwhelming threat that it could not adequately meet.
RESCUED FROM THE MEMORY HOLE IN AIRSTRIP ONE: London Telegraph pulled article critical of Home Secretary Theresa May and the massive influx of “migrants” under her watch after alleged campaign pressure.
BYRON YORK: When Mitt Romney sounded like Donald Trump.
We know what Donald Trump says about trade and China. Google “Trump” and “China” and “trade war” and you’ll get an idea of how many people have criticized Trump’s threat to use tariffs to retaliate against Chinese currency manipulation.
But Trump is not the first Republican nominee to say such things. Many, many, many years ago — say, in the 2012 campaign — GOP candidate Mitt Romney repeatedly threatened to use tariffs to retaliate against Chinese currency manipulation.
“Mitt Romney has vowed to impose tariffs on China the day he becomes president,” the liberal Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson wrote in late September 2011. And indeed Romney had.
The introduction to Romney’s 59-point economic plan, released earlier in September 2011, contained five executive orders Romney pledged to enact on Day One of his presidency. One of them was:
An Order to Sanction China for Unfair Trade Practices: Directs the Department of the Treasury to list China as a currency manipulator in its biannual report and directs the Department of Commerce to assess countervailing duties on Chinese imports if China does not quickly move to float its currency.
Later in the document, in a section headlined “Confronting China,” Romney pledged to “impose targeted tariffs.” “If the United States identifies a Chinese firm or industry that is relying on unfair practices or misappropriated American technology for its competitive advantage, we should be in a position to impose punitive measures in response,” Romney wrote.
In November 2011, Romney elaborated on some of those positions in a CBS News debate. “[China] can’t hack into our computer systems and steal from our government,” Romney said. “They can’t steal from corporations. They can’t take patents and designs, intellectual property and duplicate them — duplicate them and counterfeit them and sell them around the world. And they also can’t manipulate their currency in such a way as to make their prices well below what they otherwise would be. We have to have China understand that, like everybody else on the world stage, they have to play by the rules.”
Well, to be fair to them, we elected someone who didn’t feel that way.
CALIFORNIA WILL NOW REQUIRE AN ID AND BACKGROUND CHECK FOR AMMUNITION PURCHASES, BUT…
(Wait for it!)
(H/T: Cary Cheshire.)
LINDA GREENHOUSE 0, ANN ALTHOUSE 2.
HENCE, ORLANDO: 1. See Something, 2. Say Something, 3. Get Accused Of Islamophobia By CAIR.
Flashback: Coming Clean About CAIR.
DOESN’T FIT THE NARRATIVE: Another mass shooting by an illegal immigrant who’d been deported multiple times.
OPERATION BLAZING SWORD HAS INSTRUCTORS IN ALL FIFTY STATES: If you’re gay, or otherwise vulnerable to crazy (or even sane) terrorists, remember that your right to self-defense is PROTECTED (from government busybodies) by our constitution. You have a right to shoot back. You have a right to own the weaponry to do so. If your state won’t let you, your state is unconstitutionally restricting your freedom. Meet The Woman Who’s Trying To Arm The LGBT Community.
YEAH, THIS IS WHAT OUR WAITER AT DINNER TONIGHT WAS PREACHING TOO: Complete and utter crap about gun ownership. This one is almost as ridiculous as the waiter’s theory that having a gun in the house increases the risk of suicide.
The Washington Post, reporting a CBS News poll, claims: ‘American gun ownership drops to lowest in nearly 40 years‘.
My friend Peter Grant explains the fallacies in this report. (And I wish he’d been at dinner with us.)
THE ELITES THERE AS HERE ENGAGE IN MORE PROJECTION THAN A MULTIPLEX:Credit a failure of elites, not bigotry of the masses, for Brexit.
A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS WOULD BE KINDER: New York is plagued by diploma-mill high schools.
WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A MEDICARE PATIENT AND A LAB RAT? Peta makes sure you treat the lab rat humanely! Hillary Clinton’s health plan would kill Joe Biden’s cancer ‘moonshot’